[beware: slightly off-topic maybe, but imho fundamentally important] Nick Hilliard wrote:
Hi Eric, [...]
However, the RIPE community can't dictate the cost for PI, as that is to be decided in the AGM meeting by the member votes.
This is "just" procedural, but...
It's more difficult than this. Because of the sheer numbers of PI assignments, increasing the "wholesale" cost even by a small amount will have a significant impact on the RIPE NCC's budget. That would create... awkward bureaucratic problems for the RIPE NCC.
This line of thinking would be even more than "difficult" to maintain: it would simply turn the funding and charging model for the RIPE NCC's services upside-down. The fundamental assumption is that the charging model provides the money to allow the RIPE NCC to execute the annual activity-plan (as agreed by the AGM), and to maintain a certain level of safety-belt funds to guarantee the stability of the NCC itself. The Service Charges are to be set according to cost and effort *within the NCC* to provide the services (plus the overhead, according to the activity plan). The NCC, for good reasons imho, is a not-for-profit entity and is *not* mandated (nor formally allowed, I presume) to collect money for and/or redistribute to any third party, which is not directly involved or necessary in the management of Number Resources.
Nick
I think it is pretty important to keep this in mind, in general. Wilfried.